This evening at the Plus Gallery at 2350 Lawrence St., Denver, three artists gave talks about their work, and afterward I spoke with gallery owner Ivar Zeile about how he groups artists in a show and what he hopes to hear in Artists’ Talks.  The artists were Bruce Price, John McEnroe, and Evan Colbert.

At the Salt Lake City Airport before flying home to Denver, I begin a recap of the presentation I gave today at the Mountain West Conference on the Arts.  My talk was titled "What the Heck is Web 2.0 and Can It Save the Arts?"  The room was filled to overflowing, about 60 people, and they seemed to enjoy the tour I took them on of seven sites showing new ways the internet is being used to connect people.  I hope lots of seeds were planted that may help arts organizations leaders and artists at the conference experiment with these new capabilities.  I’m exhausted after a short night last night, and I can relate to the little girl crying in the background here in Terminal 2.
I have links to the seven web sites I presented here. And here are another seven I didn’t have time to discuss.

After Mike Daisy‘s powerful one-man show, "Monopoly" last night at the Zero Garden Street Theatre in Cambridge, Mass., I spoke with him briefly about how he came to be fascinated with inventor Nicola Tesla, and I found out he makes none of his material up, including inside stories from his friend Ray who works at Microsoft. "Monopoly" continues for three more shows, followed by a final monology, "Tongues Will Wag," Daisy’s take on pets, to be performed Tuesday May 8. Highly recommended!

Drawing on examples from Adam Curry, David Allen and Adam Weiss, I arrive at five rules for good podcast interviews.  Tim Donovan of Mowhawk Shade & Blind Co. in Cambridge was here at the house while I worked on the podcast, and he agreed to an interview.  This gave me a chance to practice my new rules!

Leaders of the six regional arts organizations in the U.S. gathered during the past two days at the Admiral Fell Inn, in Baltimore, for a planning meeting led by Toby Herzlich of Santa Fe.  This podcast episode comprises thoughts about the future by the executive directors of the RAOs, in this order: David J. Fraher, Arts Midwest; Alan W. Cooper, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation; Gerri Combs, Southern Arts Federation; Mary Kennedy McCabe, Mid-America Arts Alliance, Anthony Radich, Western States Arts Federation, and Rebecca Blunk, New England Federation for the Arts. Major funding for the RAOs is provided by the National Foundation for the Arts.

Yesterday I attended the first meeting of a Project Evaluation Panel at Denver International Airport, convened to guide the process of choosing three new, temporary artworks from emerging Colorado artists.  Two will be on a median strip of Pena Boulevard leading to and from the airport. The other will be on a new Regional Jet Facility nearing completion on Concourse B.  This podcast contains interviews with panel members after our meeting, as we took a hardhat tour of the Concourse B area.

This book review of The Laws of Simplicity by MIT professor John Maeda follows David Tames‘s compelling recommendation of the book at last week’s Boston Media Makers meeting.  I loved this book and plan to read it again and maybe again.  The writing is playful and clear.  The concepts are subtle and powerful. Highly recommeded. 

Flickr photo of John Maeda by Keith Jenkins, Picture Editor of the Washington Post.

This week I visited the corporate headquarters of Me.dium in Boulder, Colorado, and spoke with Dean Steadman, left, community management director, and Tobias Peggs, business development director.  This startup is in beta, available by invitation . It adds a window to your browser that shows who else is visiting sites you might be interested in, and where you can follow them and chat online. 

I loved the high energy of their funky offices, filled with bicycles and more than 25 (to me) very young employees.  When I suggested a photo, Dean and Tobias left the conference room to don company T-shirts, a spontaneous bit of corporate enthusiasm and pride that I never saw when I worked for a natural gas utility. 

Me.dium is a potent evolutionary advance for browsing the internet.  When the Twitter buzz dies down, I can imagine an even bigger phenomenon: people realizing they don’t have to browse the internet alone anymore.  If as many people cross over as Dean and Tobias and their gang hope, one day in the foreseeable future it may well be all about Me.dium.

OK, I admit it. I’m hooked on Twitter, the deceptively simple site that asks "What are you doing?" and gives you 140 characters to answer the question.  I can’t help posting these microblog entries, and I look forward to receiving them from my friends on my Motorola Q phone, a steady stream of innocent little posts which delights me, especially when I hear from my "real-world" buddy Kes Woodward in Fairbanks.  Others on my list include Dave Winer, Cali Lewis, Kris Krug, Will Pate,  Leo LaPorte, and Stephanie Booth of Lausanne, Switzerland.

Music: "Going to the Sun"on the <a href="http://www.earthpassage.com/glacier.htm">Glacier Journey</a>
CD composed by Montana musicians Christine Dickinson, Janet Haarvig and Matthew Lyon&nbsp; Link <a href="http://www.earthpassage.com/glacier.htm">here</a>. Used by
permission.

I’ve been thinking about how the internet is changing what we mean by "friend," and how technology such as podcasting makes it possible to reach out to strangers despite differences in geography, ethnicity and other ways by which we separate ourselves from others.  For specifics, I turned to a new friend on the excellent Me.dium site, and to a few strangers on the Boston subway’s red line this morning.

Music: "Going to the Sun" on the Glacier Journey
CD composed by Montana musicians Christine Dickinson, Janet Haarvig and
Matthew Lyon  Link here. Used by
permission.

Photo of a Boston subway station by Michelle Barrette of Kingston, Canada, courtesy of Flickr.